Widow thrashed, ejected despite stay order

ISLAMABAD – The Estate Office has resorted to hooliganism to get a government House, no D-119, Street 20 in G-6/2 sector, vacated forcefully from a widow, despite the fact that she has a valid stay order from a court.

Javed Chaudhry, a relative of the widow, Inayat Bibi, told TheNation that when 8 years back husband of Inayat Bibi had died, the government permitted his widow to live in that house. He said that her husband, Ghulam Rasool, was a serving employee of Ministry of Religious Affairs. He said that after five years the Estate Office issued a notice of vacation of her house but she approached the court, adding that she had succeeded to get a stay order from the court against that notification. Despite that, Inayat Bibi produced a stay order of court to the Estate Office officials but they did not care for the same and forcefully vacated her house.

Jamal Ahmad, an eye witness, told this correspondent that officials of Estate Office along with a large number of policemen raided the house of Inayat Bibi and they thrashed her and her family members. They also threw the luggage of the home outside on the road. Estate Officials present at the scene, told TheNation that they have no concern with court order but they were only following the directions of their high ups in this regard.

One of the officials of Estate Office said that husband of widow was his close friend but now unfortunately due to massive pressure from some mighty quarters he was not in a position to assist Inayat Bibi. He conceded that the way the raid was conducted, his department not only violated the well-settled rules and ethics but also committed contempt of court.

Asim, a Joint Estate Officer, when contacted, claimed that Inayat Bibi had no stay order. He also said that there was already shortage of government houses in the capital so his department has no other option except this. “However, it is unfortunate that we conduct a raid for this purpose but dilemma is that people are not ready to vacate the government houses willingly,” he said. He claimed that remaining dues of the widow are more then 4,000,00 but she got a stay order from the court under the subject of ‘Submission of Remaining Dues of Rent of the House No D 119 G-6/2’. To a query, he also conceded that more relaxation was possible but relatives of Inayat Bibi misbehaved with officials of the Estate Office.

It may be recalled that officials of the Estate Office conducted such ventures in the past too. Few months back they conducted a raid on the house of a doctor in I-8 sector but due to Prime Minister’s intervention officials of the Estate Office withdrew their claim. But the previous year a similar successful raid was conducted on the house of the then 87-year-old Dr Zaidi (now deceased), who headed the Quaid-i-Azam Papers project.
Source: The Nation
Date:9/30/2009